Sustaining and Expanding Youth Mental Health Supports in Illinois

Expanding equitable access to mental health, social-emotional learning & trauma-informed supports for all schools and students statewide

Illinois has made significant gains in supporting student and educator mental health. This doesn’t happen without building an infrastructure of support so educators can easily access the resources they and their students need. 

While a lot of groundwork was laid in Illinois to support student mental health over the last several decades, it wasn’t until the pandemic hit and ESSER dollars became available that our state was able to double down and put into practice a comprehensive network of resources through REACH and SEL Hubs that schools are using daily. 

In fact, nearly 800 schools across the state have enrolled in REACH and more than 3,000 Illinois schools have received services from the SEL Hubs. This spring, 300 schools will gain access to the Resilience-Supportive Schools Roadmap, offering schools a set of tools to measure and support students’ access to mental health, SEL and trauma-informed supports, and to connect schools to relevant resources. 

We can’t afford to let this good progress fall to the wayside.

A Call to Action for our Schools & Educators

A collective of mental health professionals and educators across Illinois is requesting new public funding from the Illinois General Assembly to support the continuation of the great SEL and trauma-informed initiatives already making great strides in Illinois. 

Funding the Resilience-Supportive Schools Roadmap means ALL Illinois schools will have access to this network and continued support through REACH, SEL Hubs and other important partners, which have become a go-to and much-needed set of resources for educators. 

Advocacy Goals

Overview of Resilient Schools Roadmap

The Resilience-Supportive Schools Roadmap combines self-assessment data with existing school-level administrative data and previously collected information, like the 5Essentials, to create a well-rounded picture for school leaders about how their SEL, mental health, and trauma-informed supports is and can meet the needs of their school, staff and students.

 With the data review complete, schools may choose to access support to create action plans for whole-school improvement – and be connected to programs and resources to facilitate the implementation of their action plan in a sustainable way. This Roadmap approach is designed to create highly-customized plans that pair data insights with individual school cultures and needs.

Following the completion of the Roadmap, schools are connected with vetted providers and tools to support implementation of their action plans. The three anchor resources to support schools are REACH, the Learning and Resource Hub and SEL Hubs.

Testimonials

Who We Are

  • Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Center for Childhood Resilience

  • Social Emotional Learning Hubs within the Illinois State Board of Education

  • Partnership for Resilience

  • Stress & Trauma Treatment Center